Hey dragons! So, yesterday was officially Completo Day here in my country, and obviously, I had to draw Jack experiencing the absolute glory of a completo italiano (avocado, tomato, and a massive amount of mayo).

First, let me start off by saying that I’m Latina. In the comics, Miguel is a portrayed as a white Latino and he doesn’t act all animalistic and feral. But in ATSV, where he is clearly a brown Mestizo Latino, that’s when they decide to make him acting animalistic and feral… You can say it’s because Miguel is half human and half spider and that’s why which makes sense but why didn’t they do this until the brown Latino version of the character? Is that not suspicious?

The stereotypes that Latino men (especially darker skinned Latino men) get is that they are hot tempered, controlling and physically threatening. Okay, he’s the leader of the Spider-Society and has been through a lot of trauma which is why he is strict and the reason why we see him so angry is because Miles broke a canon event. Let me add that I am fully aware that Miguel has always been a more serious and darker version of Spider-Man. I know. He was written by people who are not Latino and it needs to be understood that there is a possibility that they could have subconsciously projected stereotypes on him if they had them and didn’t unlearn them.

What about his Indigenous heritage? The artbook said that Miguel had to have the appearance of an authentic Mesoamerican. Okay. Y’all not finding it suspicious how they are suddenly trying to portray the guy with visible Indigenous heritage as feral? What did the colonizers call the Native Americans? Oh… they called them “savages” and “barbarians”. Dude… 🫩

It could be a coincidence, I’m not saying it’s impossible but come onnnnn… people can’t stay willfully blind to the parallels just because they like him and don’t want to see it. I’m saying it’s important to keep the change up in mind. I’m saying it’s important to keep stereotypes and racism towards Latinos in mind. We’ll see how he is portrayed in BTSV.

If the writers were just like: “Hey, since the past variations of Miguel were white Latino then we should make this Miguel a brown Mestizo Latino like his mom! And since he’s half human and half spider, we should dive deeper into that! We should show more animalistic behaviors to reflect his altered biology because 50% spider is a lot.” then that’s one thing. But with how the writers handle everything else in ATSV, are Latinos crazy to doubt this was the case? No, we’re not.

Tehuana with Basket, Miguel Covarrubias, circa 1940

CARLOS OLIVERA IS MEXICAN